Patty Miller
The Edmond Sun
EDMOND —
Two local law enforcement officers traveled to a competition in Gustrow, Germany, and came home with an eighth-place team finish.
Oklahoma County Sheriff’s Office rangemaster Lt. Jim Anderson from Edmond and Sgt. Jason Ruegge from Bethany are not new to winning in competitions.
In addition to the eighth-place team finish, Anderson placed seventh and Ruegge placed ninth in the individual contest against 80 competitors from around the world.
“Ruegge and I were invited to be guest instructors at the German Special Operations Workshop held in Gustrow, Germany,” Anderson said. “This workshop was attended by special operations teams from all over Germany and Europe.”
The team of two taught an Advanced Shotgun class that Anderson said was very well received by the conference attendees.
Along with the conference was a competition to test firearms proficiency and the ability to communicate as a team to solve a “Problem.”
“Since we were unable to transport weapons into a foreign country, we used borrowed weapons to compete in this competition,” Anderson said.
“Using borrowed guns made it much more difficult,” he said.
As rangemaster, Anderson said he is responsible for all firearms training for his agency.
“We have officers from all over the state attend our firearms training events,” Anderson said. “This is a full-time assignment along with my participation as a team member on our Tactical Unit.”
Anderson and Ruegge competed in the U.S. National Sniper Championships in Tulsa last June.
“We tied with the Dallas Police Department for second place and finished .05 of a second behind them for the tie-breaker,” Anderson said. “That put us finishing third in a field of 40 teams from all over the world.”
Anderson said the competition is very physical and involves negotiating obstacles and engaging targets from a variety of positions and distances.
“The smallest targets we shot were plastic Easter eggs from 225 yards. The competition was held at the U.S. Shooting Academy just north of Tulsa.”
The sniper events lasted three days, and then the SWAT team events began. The Oklahoma County Sheriff’s office sent 10 operators to compete in the team events.
“Basically, it was the same format as the sniper events over a four-day period,” Anderson said.
“Our team won the Oklahoma Cup awarded to the top finishing team from Oklahoma with an overall eighth-place finish with teams from all over the world.”
Anderson said attending competition events was a great way to test Ruegge’s and his abilities to function in a stressful environment to accomplish the goal of saving lives in a critical incident.
“We will definitely go to the 2011 U.S. National Sniper Competition held in Tulsa this fall,” Ruegge said. He thinks they are definitely a contender for one of the top three spots again.
“We are very fortunate to have the support of Sheriff John Whetsel, without whose support we would not be able to build the training program that allows our Law Enforcement Special Operators to perform at the level they do, which we now know to be world class,” Anderson said.
pmiller@edmondsun.com | 341-2121, ext. 171
